Desiring God is having a $5 book sale: every book will be $5 on Wed-Thurs, 6/27-28. That’s a good deal and I’ll be placing an order.
I actually got my first Piper book for $.25. It was a hardcover of Desiring God, without a dustjacket. But after a couple of attempts to read through it (no one makes it through that book the first time, I don’t believe), I finished.
Later a friend was moving back to the States and needed a book to read on the plane. I loaned him my marked-up copy. I never did see it again, but I heard that it started him on the path to being a career missionary.
During the first half of my tenure at IBEX, I was quite happy to read selections from Piper books at various opportunities, so as to introduce him to the students. By around 2000, it seemed like more people had heard of him and I didn’t feel the need to push what they already knew. But I’ve realized more lately that many of my students have never read a single Piper book. If that’s you, or if you haven’t read much, here is how I suggest you spend your $20 this week.
1. Future Grace – my favorite Piper book for practical theology – this book has affected how I live probably more than any others of his.
2. The Pleasures of God – this is Piper’s most challenging work, intellectually, but it is extremely profitable. This book showed me how God is the center of God.
3. The Hidden Smile of God – I read this book when our son Timothy was having surgery and it was immensely profitable. It may not be the best book to read when you’re lounging on the beach, but have a copy handy for when the doctor calls and it’s bad news.
4. Brothers, We Are Not Professionals – I consider this an introduction to Piper. Most of his big ideas and hot buttons are touched in a concise format here. Don’t be misled into thinking that it is only for pastors.
Honorable Mention (or if you’ve got $40):
The Dangerous Duty of Delight – really the first book to read of Piper’s,
but I couldn’t bump any of the above.
Don’t Waste Your Life
When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy
Suffering and the Sovereignty of God – the one book I’m recommending that I actually haven’t read.
Let the Nations Be Glad – missions exists because worship doesn’t.
What I’m buying:
What Jesus Demands from the World
You see how it’s hard for me when I hear of students who haven’t even read one book by John Piper.
Todd: Thanks for the heads up. I would also highly recommend “The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God,” a four-part narrative poem telling the story of Job. It comes with a CD of Piper reading the poem. A great gift for people going through difficult times.
Can I recommend Piper/Edwards book “God’s passion for His glory” Piper does some explaining of Edwards in the first part then Edwards’ “The end for which God created the world” is the second part. It is an excellent book and it really challenges us to examine our lives and see if we are living a life worthy of being called a Christian.
Todd, thanks for pointing this out. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to buy Future Grace this summer. Looks like this is it. Hope all is well in Israel.
I may have to read “Contending For Our All”
He’s got my favorite Chrurch leader of all time, Athanasius, and one of my least favorite, J. Gresham Machen, in the same sub-title.
Machen was the perfect example of how you could be theologically right (at least mostly) and personally graceless. His attitude lost him a battle he could have won.
Al, what battle could Machen have won?
Machen was the main opponent to what he saw as “liberalism” in the Presbyterian Church in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
There were a few true liberals running around at the time, but the vast majority of the church were fairly conservative adherents to the Westminsier Confession. Yet, most found no reason to swat a fly with a hammer and were willing to leave the liberals with a mild rebuke.
Machen was brilliant and equally abrasive. He drove many of the people who would have supported his positions away from him. Many evangelicals didn’t want to be associated with him because of his attitude, not his beliefs.
He never really lost a vote, but he never got the support he felt he needed. He eventually started his own mission agencies and seminary and – more because of the way he did it than what he did – he got tossed out of the Presbyterian Church.
I do believe that if he had a greater wilingness to work with other and could have been more graceful in the way he went about his protests, he would have carried the day.
A good book on this is Longfield’s: The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates
He records the history well, but I think he overstates the case when he tries at analyze Machen’s motives.
Thanks Todd for letting us know!
Al writes, “I do believe that if he had a greater wilingness to work with other and could have been more graceful in the way he went about his protests, he would have carried the day.”
I still don’t see you explaining what battle Machen would have won, or exactly what carrying the day means.
Liberalism had pervaded the Presbyterian Church far more than you make it. The later direction of the denomination and Princeton are proof that Machen was right. The grace of his words, or lack thereof, had nothing to do with the decision of the church.
BTW, do you think Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism, was mean spirited? Did Machen go overboard with his doctrinal concerns in this book or was he justified?